Number of smartphone users hits one billion

Jokes aside, we’ve seen such rapid spread of all things mobile that it seems quite likely we’ll sooner strap the entire race with smartphones than PCs.

The numbers were calculated from November 1992, which is the date when the first smartphone saw the light of day. The device came from IBM and was dubbed the Simon, although the term smartphone didn’t come about until 1997.

Stategy Analytics research firm said that as much as one in seven people in the world have owned a smartphone in Q3 2012. The exact figure for that period is 1.038 billion and it’s the first time smartphones have exceeded the billion mark.

Strategy Analytics says that there were 708 million smartphone users by Q3 2011. It estimated that the 2 billion mark will be reached by 2015.

Looking from here though, it’s quite interesting how “constellations” changed in the meantime, as Nokia was considered an absolute mobile giant at the time. Fast forward to today, and you’ll realize just how easy it is to turn a Goliath into a midget.